Richard & Linda Thompson - 29 May 1982: Bloomington, Indiana

Disc 1: Early show

  1. Man In Need
  2. Walking On A Wire
  3. Lonely Hearts
  4. New-Fangled Flogging Reel/Kerry Reel (Trad.)
  5. Honky-Tonk Blues (Williams)
  6. Dimming Of The Day
  7. I'll Keep It With Mine (Dylan)
  8. Happy Birthday (Trad.)
  9. You're Going To Need Somebody
  10. Just The Motion
  11. Don't Renege On Our Love
  12. For Shame Of Doing Wrong
  1. Down Where The Drunkards Roll

Disc 2: Late show

  1. I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight
  2. Genesis Hall
  3. Wall Of Death
  4. I'm A Dreamer (Denny)
  5. Don't Renege On Our Love
  1. Banish Misfortune (Trad.)
  2. Honky-Tonk Blues (Williams)
  3. The Choice Wife (Trad.)
  4. Borrowed Time
1-13
Recorded live at Second Story in Bloomington, Indiana on May 29, 1982 (early show)
14-18
Recorded live at Second Story in Bloomington, Indiana on May 29, 1982 (late show)
19-22
Recorded live at BBC Studios in London, England on September 5, 1981.
"We used to be the Richard & Linda Thompson Band, now we're not so sure..." (Simon Nicol, at the beginning of the late show)

Telling words from Simon Nicol as the U.S. tour winds its way to a conclusion. Happy Birthday is sung by Richard and Linda for Pete Zorn. These Bloomington recordings are taken from soundboard tapes, but not without their flaws - the mix on the early show sounds a little off, with all the instrumentation in the left channel and vocals in the right. There's also a fair amount of hiss on both shows.

The early show omits the final encore (Danny Boy), but this is also missing on the original soundboard master. More irritatingly, only 25 minutes or so of the late show is included in this set - although there are cuts on the original I believe around 60 minutes or so commonly circulates (including Hard Luck Stories, Pavanne, partial versions of Sloth and Back Street Slide, and the encore of Withered And Died).

The Breakthrough radio appearance was for BBC Radio London, and is Richard performing solo in the studio. There's an unfortunate piece of "swirl" distortion during Borrowed Time, but otherwise the quality of this aging FM broadcast is fairly good. Why it should have been included whilst the rest of the Bloomington tracks were omitted remains a mystery.